After we got fairly into the desert, which was a trackless waste, I became possessed by a feeling that the man did not know the way. He talked a good deal about the North Star, and the fork in the road, and that we must be sure not to miss it. It was a still, hot, starlit night. Jack and the driver sat on the front seat. They had taken the back seat out, and my little boy and I sat in the bottom of the wagon, with the hard cushions to lean against through the night. I suppose we were drowsy with sleep; at all events, the talk about the fork of the road and the North Star faded away into dreams. I awoke with a chilly feeling, and a sudden jolt over a rock. "I do not recollect any rocks on this road, Jack, when we came over it in the ambulance," said I. "Neither do I," he replied. I looked for the North Star: I had looked for it often when in open boats. It was away off on our left, the road seemed to be ascending and rocky: I had never seen this piece of road before, that I was sure of. "We are going to the eastward," said I, "and we should be going northwest." "My dear, lie down and go to sleep; the man knows the road; he is taking a short cut, I suppose," said the Lieutenant. There was something not at all reassuring in his tones, however. The driver did not turn his head nor speak. I looked at the North Star, which was getting farther and farther on our left, and I felt the gloomy conviction that we were lost on the desert. Finally, at daylight, after going higher and higher, we drew up in an old deserted mining-camp. The driver jerked his ponies up, and, with a sullen gesture, said, "We must have missed the fork of the road; this is Picket Post." "Great Heavens!" I cried; "how far out of the way are we?" "About fifteen miles," he drawled, "you see we shall have to go back to the place where the road forks, and make a new start." I nearly collapsed with discouragement. I looked around at the ruined walls and crumbling pillars of stone, so weird and so grey in the dawning light: it might have been a worshipping place of the Druids. My little son shivered with the light chill which comes at daybreak in those tropical countries: we were hungry and tired and miserable: my bones ached, and I felt like crying. We gave the poor ponies time to breathe, and took a bite of cold food ourselves. Ah! that blighted and desolate place called Picket Post! Forsaken by God and man, it might have been the entrance to Hades. Would the ponies hold out? They looked jaded to be sure, but we had stopped long enough to breathe them, and away they trotted again, down the mountain this time, instead of up. It was broad day when we reached the fork of the road, which we had not been able to see in the night: there was no mistaking it now. We had travelled already about forty miles, thirty more lay before us; but there were no hills, it was all flat country, and the owner of these brave little ponies said we could make it.